Women

Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – In 2018, we have an opportunity to accelerate progress towards gender equality. Movements such as #MeToo have shone the spotlight on an unacceptable status quo and demonstrated how too many women the world over continue to be deprived of respect and equal opportunities. Let’s use International Women’s Day to build on this global momentum for change and suggest targeted solutions to empower women across our economies and societies. Women entrepreneurs have a key role to play.

NEW YORK (IDN) – In the run up to International Women’s Day on March 8, the United Nations is renewing its call for concrete actions to address the plight of rural women who make up over a quarter of the world population yet are being left behind in every measure of development.

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (IDN) – Shefali Aktar, mother of three, fled her home in Thaphanbin, a tiny village overlooking the Arakan Mountains in Rakhine state in Myanmar.

The 22-year-old pregnant woman escaped near death when her neighbour helped her and her children to hide in the nearby forest the night after the entire population of about 600 families in her village was wiped out.

“I went back to my village the next evening to find my husband. Instead, I found dead bodies,” says Shefali, breaking down in tears as she continues to narrate the horror.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – While normative frameworks to empower and protect women in conflict situations have made steady advancement in the last 17 years since the adoption of a landmark resolution by the Security Council, real progress in women’s meaningful engagement in all phases of peacebuilding and their protection from abuse and exploitation are seriously lagging.

The representatives of UN member states at the ministerial and diplomatic levels agreed during a 10-hour Security Council debate on October 27 on 'Women, Peace and Security' that progress on the ground must be accelerated by way of more funding for gender expertise in peacebuilding.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) - Although women’s absence from peace tables is no longer easily brushed off as normal, it is still commonplace. Every year, we track women’s overall participation in peace processes that are led by the UN. We track the inclusion of gender expertise and gender-sensitive provisions in peace agreements, and the requirement to consult with women’s civil society organizations. In all of these indicators, we performed slightly worse than a year ago.

The writer is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN | UN Women) - The pain and anger of more than a million people who tweeted #MeToo in the last week have crowded social media with personal stories of sexual harassment or assault. This virtual march of solidarity marks both the urgency of finding a shared voice and the hidden scale of assault that did not previously have a register. When women are almost invisible, when they are not really seen, it seems that people do not have to care what happens to them.

This online outcry is important because it is giving voice to acts that are public, but that are silenced and neutralized by convention. It is a cruel privilege to be able to harass a girl or a woman with impunity, but in so many cases this is the norm.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN-INPS) - African advocates, pioneers, and thought leaders of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, together with the Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende, took stock of the achievements and challenges for women building sustainable peace on the continent at a high-level event on September 22 during the 72nd General Assembly.

“If peace processes do not include women, civil society and youth, they are not sustainable,” Børge Brende summarized the common understanding motivating all panellists in their endeavour.

When the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) in 2000 and acknowledged the multifaceted role women play for peace and conflict, it was a milestone. In the aftermath, advocates all around the globe pushed Member States for its tangible implementation via National Action Plans (NAPs).

COLOMBO (IDN) - Having grown up in a biological family unit that upheld male domination, envied and resented female intellect, with a mother that declared in no uncertain terms that even though crestfallen a male is a male, Fathima's ears soon were not alien to such sexist remarks but the bitterness that swelled inside was inexpressible.

Maternal discriminatory insistence that even vehemently once asked, "if they can tame a wild elephant then why not you?" simply threw this child off board. There was no one in whom she could have faith to spell out all her agony. Fathima's utter consternation, dismay and disgust over maternal sexist expressions licensed continuous harassment even assaults from her biological membership which term she even resents to this day.

ROME (IDN) – Almost ten years have come and gone since the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007, but indigenous people continue to face discrimination, marginalisation and major challenges in enjoying their basic rights.

“The Declaration, which took more than twenty years to negotiate, stands today as a beacon of progress, a framework for reconciliation and a benchmark of rights,” according to a joint statement on the occasion of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9 issued by Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine, Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Braving a scorching temperature, 38-year-old Caroline Rono rambles barefoot along a tiny path that snakes in the direction of the reptile-infested salty seasonal Lake Solai in Kenya’s Rift Valley with the giggling baby on her back swaying to the movement of her mother’s hips.

In the rural areas of Kenya, as in virtually in all African countries, the burden of collecting, carrying and managing water has always rested on the shoulders of women, and under the weight of recurrent droughts, this burden has almost become unbearable.